Ossuary Overlord

Skeletor
28 mm

Dust rise, right on over my time
Empty fossil of the new scene
I feel so alone
Gonna end up a big ole pile of them bones

Skeletor... The most villainous, if not the most competent, villain in all of Eternia!  Is he a lich?  A necromancer?  A demon?  A guy wearing a mask?  Nobody knows for sure... But he will not stop his evil plotting until the most potent magic of all - the power of Castle Greyskull - is his to command!

Skeletor is a Quest Miniatures MOTU figure. I modified his booted feet to bare ones, and gave him bracers to reinforce a somewhat sketchy pinning job on his left wrist.

"Uh... I guess you've been going to the gym."

There's so much I could say about this guy... but really, he speaks for himself...

Hasty pudding

Gelatinous Cube
28mm scale


So it was election night in Canada, and I could have spent the evening anxiously glued to my laptop waiting for the latest scraps of data... but instead I spent it doing a quick, fun hobby project! 

At work we ran some small plastic media bottles through the hot dishwasher... they did not like it, producing what us scientists like to call "autoclave art":

This could have merely been a funny desk decoration, but I had other ideas.  I sawed one in half:

Made a cheap base out of cork, with dungeon stones painted on with a piece of sponge:

Glued a few shoddily-painted skulls and a spare sword to the inside surface, and tada!

A pretty decent, though smallish, version of the classic D&D Gelatinous Cube!  It's perhaps not going to win any hobby contests, but I'm happy with it!  And it's nice to have a project come together so spontaneously after painstakingly painting up Narthoks the Beholder...

"Looks like it already found those bandits we met earlier..."

Enter the Beholder-verse

Narthoks the Terrible
28mm scale

Burning cities
And napalm skies
Fifteen flares inside those ocean eyes

An arch-villain, an overlord, a mercenary, a destroyer, a monster... Narthoks is all of these things.  Floating through space takes on new meaning when the floater is a 2m-wide highly intelligent creature with a taste for carnage, pillage, and devouring sapient flesh.  Heavily armed and utterly ruthless, Narthoks bears the scars of past battles but only becomes more dangerous with each bloody encounter.

Narthoks is a Bears Head miniature... in my opinion the most spectacular character Phillip has created so far!  I made a few conversions: swapping his club for a vintage chainsword, replacing his round grenade, and adding a claw to his tech-tentacle.

"Going somewhere, human?"

Glamorous Guardian

Teela
28 mm

Warrior girl only goes to where she wants to
Warrior girl maybe has a heavy sword
Warrior girl has no idea where she jumps to
But she jumps to where she wants to
And she's never, ever bored

The brave and loyal but sometimes headstrong Teela is the Captain of the Eternian Royal Guard.  The adopted daughter of Duncan, the Man-At-Arms, she is in fact the secret child of Teela-Na, the Sorceress of Castle Greyskull.

This Quest Miniatures figure really captures the cheesy 1980's-ness of the character, charging into battle in her up-do, white swimsuit and high heels.  As one does.  The shield that came with her was quite large, which I remedied by making a copy using Instant Mold and replicating only the central boss with greenstuff, to give her a buckler more suitable for a lightly-armored warrior.

"Bring Your Daughter to Work Day"

"Uh... I'm sure that cat wasn't anybody's pet."

The Number of the Beast

Beastman
28 mm

Call me the Manimal
That's what I am
Call me the Manimal,
Half beast half man

Beastman is one of Skeletor's closest and most loyal henchmen, able to command wild creatures of Eternia to aid Skeletor's schemes. But sometimes he chafes under his lord's harsh command and covets power of his own...  A Quest Miniatures MOTU figure.

"Ragggh! You think big club make warrior?" "Guess we'll find out!"

Stalwart soldier

Man-at-Arms
28 mm

Wife and kids, household pet
Army green was no safe bet

Duncan, the Man-At-Arms, advises the crown of Eternia on matters of war and security, but he's also ready to wade into battle swinging his huge mace.  He's the adopted father of the female warrior Teela.

This is another "Masters of the Universe" character from Quest Miniatures.  It was an interesting chance to work with a colour scheme I probably wouldn't have chosen myself.  Looking at this figure now makes me realize how much those colours make him resemble "Strontium Dog" character Johnny Alpha...

Ethereal Eternian

The Sorceress of Castle Greyskull
28 mm

Eternia... a strange land of mighty heroes, where mystical forces and arcane technology coexist.  A land in peril from the perpetual plans of the forces of evil...  One of its most powerful protectors is a mysterious Sorceress, who resides in the ancient Castle Greyskull.

The sorceress is, obviously, a character from "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe", a toy line and cartoon that I, like many North American kids, enjoyed in the 1980's.  I was thrilled to find that Quest Miniatures produces a number of excellent MOTU figures.

The "light " photo might be better... I always struggle with this stuff.

I didn't follow the "canon" look for her exactly, but I think the result was a bit more dramatic in contrast between the front and back of the figure.

Readers may remember I posted a while back about some amazing 80's nostalgia figures I found... including these ones.  In a moment of weakness, I bought the entire set of MOTU core heroes and villains from Quest.  "Man-At-Arms" is next on the painting queue: